AsHema
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
I will comment more on the most famous soliloquy of Macbeth. Macbeth becomes very philosophical when he is tired of life, " I have lived long enough" ( Act 5, Scene 3). It is at that stage that Shakespeare makes him a pathetic character, and we wonder somehow if he is a redeemable person. Macbeth knows his doom is near. He is delluding himself, " Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing"( Act 5, Scene 5). Macbeth at that very moment, ponders on his life's tragic end. He insinuates that he has lived a life of nothingness. Nobody will contemplate while thinking of him and for Macbeth, life is just a void. <br><br>Shakespeare criticizes life using his famous character, Macbeth. Life is indeed a tragedy, if we see it from another angle. We are born to die, ain't it true? But Macbeth is the tragic hero because he has dug his own grave. It is a lifetime lesson that one can learn while studying Macbeth closely. It shouldn't just be a surface reading, but we should scrutinize every Act and Scene, and draw our numerous conclusions. The Theme Appearance v/s Reality is correlated to our mundane life. Macbeth relied on the "weird sisters" and ignored the reality. He believed in the inthinkables and impossibles, and thus, reached his own destruction. His mind was so "full of scorpions" and he had his "vaulting ambition", and these factors veiled his eyes from perceiving the truth. Altogether, Macbeth is a fantastic play with Shakespeare's greatest quotes of philosophy. And the most intriguing character is indeed Macbeth himself.<br><br>